Looks like dnsmasq-base based Ubuntu sharing of Internet connection does not work reliably even if the installation is disk based.
It tends to hang up for unknown reasons. Also there seems to be no difference in power usage so I went back to XP in the server.
Another battlefield has been to add nodes to the home network. One of the 3 Devolo-adapters I have has an RJ45 Ethernet connector only
and this has caused me plenty of trouble because not TP600 nor Macbook air has Ethernet card. I bought an cheap Moschip 7830 USB -Ethernet adapter which turned out faulty piece. It did not install fullway through in XP, Ubuntu nor old Win98. I had to send it back.
IBM Thinkpad 600E bios mod for processor update
I bought and installed a secondhand ADMtek ADM8511 USB Ethernet adapter and now have 3 nodes working in the home network.
Devolo Ethernet-network adapter is now connected to TP600E-server node.
Need to get power usage and heat generation still lower. Actually heat is more of a problem since TP600 server is situated in a closed shelf box under TV that has a few ventilation holes. Temperature in the box is around 33- 36C. It is bit high for a long term reliability.
IBM Travelstar IDE disk is running hot. Also MMC2 BX system chip is running quite hot, much hotter than the processor cooler.
To eliminate the heat from harddisk I need to study IDE 2.5 CF disk adapter and find a reasonably priced 8G or 16G CF module that works correctly (i.e. supports DMA). Server now runs under 4GB disk on a 7.5GB disk but on the long run I may add other server functionality so there needs to be room for that as well.
To reduce heat from the BX system chip I need to lower Vio and/or lower FSB frequency. I need to study also throtlling of FSB-bus. I think BX system chip supports bus throttling (lowering FSB frequency for short periods) but I don't know if there is available any utility to control it. I have a faint recollection that there was power management utility in original Win98 installation that allowed to change BX/CPU throttling. Have to check that if the same utility can be ported to XP. I still have the original Win 98 disk left.
Devolo Ethernet-network adapter is now connected to TP600E-server node.
Need to get power usage and heat generation still lower. Actually heat is more of a problem since TP600 server is situated in a closed shelf box under TV that has a few ventilation holes. Temperature in the box is around 33- 36C. It is bit high for a long term reliability.
IBM Travelstar IDE disk is running hot. Also MMC2 BX system chip is running quite hot, much hotter than the processor cooler.
To eliminate the heat from harddisk I need to study IDE 2.5 CF disk adapter and find a reasonably priced 8G or 16G CF module that works correctly (i.e. supports DMA). Server now runs under 4GB disk on a 7.5GB disk but on the long run I may add other server functionality so there needs to be room for that as well.
To reduce heat from the BX system chip I need to lower Vio and/or lower FSB frequency. I need to study also throtlling of FSB-bus. I think BX system chip supports bus throttling (lowering FSB frequency for short periods) but I don't know if there is available any utility to control it. I have a faint recollection that there was power management utility in original Win98 installation that allowed to change BX/CPU throttling. Have to check that if the same utility can be ported to XP. I still have the original Win 98 disk left.
Utility WinThrotlle http://www.oldskool.org/pc/throttle looks quite promising. I installed it and it allows to slow down the FSB bus and thus also processor. It has many adjustments so I need to study how they effect.
First experiments show that throttle of 50% is sufficient for the server's PIII 450@300Mhz to run the internet traffic. Effectively this is equivalent to a 150Mhz processor. I have to measure the effect to power consumption.
I have been exploring ways to run XP or Ubuntu from USB stick. One promising approach is Plop boot manager that has USB drivers in itself. http://www.plop.at
Plop in theory allows to boot Boot manager from CD/DVD, detect USB drives, then pass control to an operating system residing on the USB drive.
Unfortunately, in my TP600E, Plop did not detect neither Buffalo USB drive nor 2G USB stick. But I am not sure if I have setup and commands, because instructions are a bit vague for me. So I need to study and experiment more. I will contact the guy behind Plop if he has any prior experience with TP600E.
Plop in theory allows to boot Boot manager from CD/DVD, detect USB drives, then pass control to an operating system residing on the USB drive.
Unfortunately, in my TP600E, Plop did not detect neither Buffalo USB drive nor 2G USB stick. But I am not sure if I have setup and commands, because instructions are a bit vague for me. So I need to study and experiment more. I will contact the guy behind Plop if he has any prior experience with TP600E.
Progress with Plop boot manager. I received confirmaton that it works with USB port of TP600E.
I managed to get get USB detected but I still have to have a XP installed on the USB stick to boot. I already got so far as "NTLDR missing".
I managed to get get USB detected but I still have to have a XP installed on the USB stick to boot. I already got so far as "NTLDR missing".
I am booting from a hard disk that had originally Ubuntu / XP dual boot installed with Ubuntu 10.04LTS.
Either Plop or Grub bootmanager (not sure which) come to read boot.ini from the USB stick. I have not yet figured out what to write in the boot.ini to point to the USB disk so that booting would continue from USB stick. It tends to slip back IDE disk or end to error message (hal.dll is not found).
Boot.ini looks currently like this mess (I wonder if Plob boot mananer has left some diagnostic messages in the file? How should I interpret them?)
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=30
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[Operating Systems]
C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT = "1st, text mode setup (Boot from flash again after finished)"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="2nd, GUI mode setup, continue setup + 1st start of Windows" /fastdetect
C:\ = "---> DEBUG options. Try if you have hal.dll error <---"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 2" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 3" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 4" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 2" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 3" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 4" /fastdetect
Either Plop or Grub bootmanager (not sure which) come to read boot.ini from the USB stick. I have not yet figured out what to write in the boot.ini to point to the USB disk so that booting would continue from USB stick. It tends to slip back IDE disk or end to error message (hal.dll is not found).
Boot.ini looks currently like this mess (I wonder if Plob boot mananer has left some diagnostic messages in the file? How should I interpret them?)
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=30
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[Operating Systems]
C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT = "1st, text mode setup (Boot from flash again after finished)"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="2nd, GUI mode setup, continue setup + 1st start of Windows" /fastdetect
C:\ = "---> DEBUG options. Try if you have hal.dll error <---"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 2" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 3" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 4" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 2" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 3" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 4" /fastdetect
Last edited by Sharedoc on Sun Aug 22, 2010 11:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
the faster CF cards (120x and above) have to support DMA out of the box since speeds above ~120 are only achievable with (U)DMA. PIO4 is only capable of 16,6MB/s. in the past the problem was that there were CF->IDE adapters that didn't route 2 pins that were necessary for (U)DMA. the reason why they didn't route those pins was simple: by the time they were produced (U)DMA for CF didn't exist and the 2 pins were marked 'reserved'. however you still can route those pins and make a non-DMA adapter DMA-capable.and find a reasonably priced 8G or 16G CF module that works correctly (i.e. supports DMA)
i bought 3 super-cheap adapters half a year ago and all were DMA-capable.
every moden OS uses the cpu HLT command.I guess XP is good at using HLT(stopping the processor) whenever there is no work
If you email me include [WIMSBIOS] in the subject.
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edwin
- The Hardware Archivist
- Posts: 6287
- Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 7:11 pm
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more on partitions, boot.ini and USB sticks here:Sharedoc wrote:I am booting from a hard disk that had originally Ubuntu / XP dual boot installed with Ubuntu 10.04LTS.
Either Plop or Grub bootmanager (not sure which) come to read boot.ini from the USB stick. I have not yet figured out what to write in the boot.ini to point to the USB disk so that booting would continue from USB stick. It tends to slip back IDE disk or end to error message (hal.dll is not found).
Boot.ini looks currently like this mess (I wonder if Plob boot mananer has left some diagnostic messages in the file? How should I interpret them?)
************
C:\ = "---> DEBUG options. Try if you have hal.dll error <---"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 2" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 3" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 4" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 1" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 2" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 3" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Debug boot rDisk 2 partition 4" /fastdetect
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20089
edwin/evasive
Do not assume anything
System error, strike any user to continue...
Do not assume anything
System error, strike any user to continue...
I managed to boot BartPE on 2GB USB stick in Thinpad 600E !
Boot starts from IDE Disk (to start Plop boot manager USB drivers) and transfered booting to USB (with Plop boot manager menu).
Ifollowed instructions in http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20089 to prepare the USB stick image with BartPE.
Next I try to load a XP image on USB stick. I use WinToUSB utility.
Boot starts from IDE Disk (to start Plop boot manager USB drivers) and transfered booting to USB (with Plop boot manager menu).
Ifollowed instructions in http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20089 to prepare the USB stick image with BartPE.
Next I try to load a XP image on USB stick. I use WinToUSB utility.